


Two Heads to Take Their Place

by Cryo_Bucky



Category: Captain America (Movies)
Genre: AU, Blood, M/M, Murder, Non-Graphic Torture, Steve Rogers as the Winter Soldier, Winter Soldier Bucky Barnes, both as the winter soldier, only a little, winter soldier level violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-20
Updated: 2019-11-20
Packaged: 2021-02-16 19:07:40
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,091
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21502846
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Cryo_Bucky/pseuds/Cryo_Bucky
Summary: The Asset, one of a pair, designation 02Sergeant, turns from his target, flicking blood from the knife in his hand with a practiced motion.His partner, designation 01Captainsags to one side for a moment before straightening back into perfect military posture. There is blood on his face, smeared over his jaw and speckling his hair.
Comments: 9
Kudos: 106





	Two Heads to Take Their Place

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you ever so much to [NurseDarry](https://archiveofourown.org/users/NurseDarry/pseuds/NurseDarry) for the beta!

The Asset, one of a pair, designation 02 ~~Sergeant~~ , turns from his target, flicking blood from the knife in his hand with a practiced motion. They weren’t meant to get this close. But things didn’t always go as planned. They would complete the mission. 

His partner, designation 01 ~~Captain~~ , breaks the other man’s neck with a swift jerk of his arms, dropping him to the ground. 01 has sustained damage - sags to one side for a moment before straightening back into perfect military posture. There is blood on his face, smeared over his jaw and speckling his hair. Dawn is just creeping over the scene around them and the light illuminates 01 with an ethereal golden softness completely at odds with the blood drying on his skin. They’ve been trudging through the forest for days and the stench of blood mingles with the pine and sap odor that clings to them both. 

_Let’s hear it for Captain America!_. The words bully their way to the front of his mind and Bucky stumbles, thrown back into himself from where he had been merely a passenger until now. He stumbles, and 01, no, _Steve_ , looks back at him. There is no fondness in his icy gaze and Bucky feels his heart stutter. Bucky might as well be one of the trees around them in the face of the mission.

He has a brief flash of memory - forest, the smell of gunpowder, and Steve standing in the sun the same way he is now, wearing a blue-painted military helmet. 

_Steve?_ The word threatens to crawl its way up the Asset - ~~Bucky’s~~ \- throat, and he shakes himself hard to dispel the burning behind his eyes.

“If you’re wounded I can continue alone,” Steve says - not the same as compassion - merely cutting his losses. If Bucky were wounded he would return for maintenance, they both know that. But it feels like a brush-off, and the confused part of Bucky’s brain wants to cry out in frustration. Why now? What is happening? 

“I’m fine.” He hopes his voice is flat enough, and it must be convincing because Steve turns away from him. Bucky is glad to be behind him so that Steve can’t see the fear in his eyes. He doesn’t know…the mission. But Steve. Steve is here. Where even are they? There is something he needs to do. Why is Steve covered in blood? There is an insignia on his chest, and looking at it makes Bucky’s stomach roll and bile threatens to rise in his throat. _There should be a star there._ Bucky’s metal fingers twitch and his arm whirs loudly as it recalibrates. He hurts all over. Why does his whole left side ache so badly? 

“We gotta go…” Steve pauses for a moment, examining the body at his feet, “Finish the mission.” 

Bucky drops his head down, his stomach churning. “Yeah.” 

Whatever happens. They have to complete the mission. It’s too easy to let the calculated blankness fall over him once more. 

Bucky wakes to Steve screaming.

“Steve?” The word sticks in his throat, comes out as a gurgle, and he has to drag his eyes open. Cold, god, he’s so cold.

He has clearly been awake for a while, but not present. Two firm sets of hands are holding him, holding him up, he can’t get his feet under him. He’s so cold but he isn’t shivering, why? Shouldn’t he be trying to warm up? It’s hard for his sluggish brain to register that it is dark because his eyes are closed, he peels them open and they threaten to stick closed with what feels like bone-deep sleep. 

Opening his eyes is a mistake. 

Steve’s screams cut off abruptly and Bucky jerks like a slap when the men half-drag him around the corner and he sees.

The Chair. 

Blankness threatens to fall over him. It’s easier if he submits, it will hurt no matter what, but it might hurt less. The smell of burnt hair and ozone makes his long-empty stomach heave, and the world swims sickeningly around Bucky. If he is sick they will simply hose him off with icy water. More cold. No more cold. Please. 

Steve is straightening up out of the chair now, but Bucky can see the dark bruises over his temples where the probes have sat against his pale skin. His hair is longer, curling around his ears but pushed back from his temples so as not to impede the probes. There’s stubble on his jaw, cut slightly unevenly as if someone had been in a hurry to get it done. 

The men drag Bucky toward the chair but he doesn’t fight them - there’s no strength in his limbs anyway - just stares up at Steve like a prayer. 

_Steve…_

The awful hum of electricity starts up and Steve is ordered from the room, he doesn’t look at Bucky as he marches his measured steps from the room, heavy boots resonating on the floor. Bucky has a sickening flash of overlay, this scene playing out over and over. Steve’s hair is shorter; then longer; then he has a full beard; and he’s clean-shaven again. 

That’s right. They’re not supposed to be together before the Chair. 

The whirr of machinery starts up and Bucky loses time. 

It isn’t working very well anymore. Whatever they had been doing to him - the Chair, the drugs, the conditioning - it isn’t taking him out of himself the way it used to. 

Bucky isn’t sure if it’s a blessing or a curse, because Steve is here with him. But Steve is _here_ with him, and the Chair does work on him. The blank and brutal efficiency to Steve’s actions tells Bucky everything he needs to know. Why was Bucky the one to break through? 

Did Steve hold out longer than he did against their efforts to pull him out? Bucky hopes he did. Steve has always been more stubborn. Surely he put up more of a fight, so why wasn’t he fighting now? Bucky had always been weak and afraid, but not Steve. They’d started in on Bucky as soon as they pulled him out of the snow at the bottom of the ravine. Steve hadn’t been with him then. Remembering hurts, makes him ache in a bone-deep way that is more cutting than anything his handlers have done. It’s easier to ignore it, but it’s like a scab that he can’t help but pick at, despite the fact that it stings every time. 

His memories overlay this new, painful, bloody reality with sepia-toned memories of Before. Steve had been with him then too. But Bucky had loved him. Did he love him now? Tools were not supposed to care, especially not love. 

There are no dreams in stasis, it’s just nothing, interrupted with flashes of pain and violence. And Steve. Always Steve there with him. 

Bucky keeps up the game. He knows how to pretend to be something else. He’d been doing that since before the war. He’s started to remember, despite their best efforts. He won’t lose Steve again. His sole focus becomes “keep Steve safe.”

Time passes. The cars change, the guns they give him change, despite feeling familiar in his hands. He himself changes, his hair grows out, and there are lines on his face when he manages to catch a glimpse of his face. He doesn’t recognize the man that looks back at him. 

Steve does not change. Bucky doesn’t know if that’s because his version of the serum is superior - if so, why doesn’t he remember? - or if they spend more time preparing him for missions than they do Bucky. But why does he stay so blank? Bucky isn’t always present in himself - loses time and comes back from the blankness that is the Soldier - but Steve never wavers, at least not that Bucky ever sees. 

Steve shows no signs of knowing Bucky. Of knowing who he is. It threatens to break down Bucky’s resolve. But he can be patient. He has always been good at biding his time until the right moment. Steve was the one to always rush in. Bucky would keep up their game, as much as it disgusts him and makes him hate everyone around him with such a brutal fury it threatens to overcome him. He won’t lose Steve. However long it takes he will keep it up until he can get them both out. 

Maybe they know that Bucky is flawed - not what they wanted at any point- why do they bother keeping him? When they have Steve? Bucky does his best to convince them, pushing further and hitting harder, striking like a feral dog at the enemies put in front of him. They like that, even if it makes them wary of him. Bucky is unwavering in his dedication to protect Steve, even if it means he can’t spit in the face of the men around them. 

They are sold off after some time, changing hands from the main branch of Hydra. It does not matter to Bucky as long as they are sold together. He knew of Hydra before. There had been a cold metal table, the first of many. Steve had shown up then too. 

_I thought you were smaller._

Their handlers put them on what is essentially an auction block, making them perform to show their skills to potential buyers. 

_Dancing monkeys._ Bucky is not sure where the idea comes from as he rolls his shoulders, settling into a defensive position with Steve across from him. This is nothing new to them. Drills to test their reactions, tests with new and old weapons, and now a hand-to-hand combat drill. Hydra had regularly pitted them against each other to find weaknesses in their defense, points that needed smoothing over with the gentility of a lead pipe. Bucky is remembering more and more every time. Not the training, that had been mindless, easy to wipe away and leave his muscles to remember. But the man that had shared his skin. James Barnes. Whoever he is now… is something different. 

He is worried he and Steve will be sold separately. What he will do if Steve is taken away from him is not a question. Bucky will not lose him, no matter that the man that stands in front of him bears little resemblance to his friend during the war. Thankfully up until now they had always been considered a matched set, only rarely sent out on solo missions. Anyone that could use an attack dog could always use two. 

There is a murmur of conversation around them, the cage-like enclosure they’ve been put in with its cement floor and harsh lights. 

“Ready.” A voice to Bucky’s left speaks up, and both he and Steve tense, waiting for - “Go.” 

Steve attacks first - Steve always attacks first - striking with a right-hook that Bucky blocks with his metal arm. The sharp _clang_ garners the attention of those around them. This is a play bout, but that doesn’t mean that they are allowed to go easy. They will likely both be bloody by the time it’s over. 

Bucky manages to back Steve up a few paces, his attacks relentless in order to put the other on the defensive. Steve is stronger, but Bucky’s metal arm puts him at an advantage to block Steve’s blows, lets him lash out with his right while Steve is reaching for him. 

Bucky almost never wins these bouts. Steve’s better than him, and he tires more slowly without the heavy metal arm pulling him off balance. Steve is slower, but his hits pack more punch, and even relying on his left side only keeps Steve away from Bucky for so long. After what seems like an eternity of trading blows Steve jams his fist into Bucky’s metal elbow, overextending his arm and making the plates shriek in protest. That moment is all is takes for Steve to have Bucky in his arms, wrenching him around and holding him in an iron-like headlock. Bucky twists like an angry cat, throwing himself backwards and managing to slam Steve into the floor. Steve wraps his legs around him, pinning Bucky’s metal arm and twisting the flesh-one at an unnatural angle until Bucky hisses. 

“Enough.” The same voice from before cuts through the haze of the bout and both Assets freeze. “An expected result.” The voice sounds disappointed and it washes over Bucky like a glacier. 

There is more murmuring, Bucky can’t hear them over the blood pounding in his ears, Steve’s harsh breath in his ear. Bucky’s arm is starting to cramp from the angle that Steve is still holding him. 

“Yes, you’re right.” The voice does not seem to be speaking to them anymore, until he is, “Captain, break his arm.” 

Bucky barely has time to draw a breath before hearing the dull snap of his own shoulder as Steve wrenches sharply from his position beneath Bucky. It hurts, of fucking course it hurts, and Bucky bites into his cheek hard enough to taste blood, choking back the scream of pain. He scuttles away from Steve when they are ordered apart, watching Steve falling into the perfected predatory rest that they have both been taught. 

His arm hurts, but he is used to pain. They were used to pain, but for some reason this cuts Bucky deeply, making the hopeful part of him want to scream and cry. They were partners, even through this they were put together to work seamlessly. Steve didn’t hurt him. The part of him that is Bucky wants to weep for his friend, the good man that had been scooped out as easily as so much clay from the ground. Bucky had never been a good man, but to see them do this to Steve is worse than any physical pain. 

The assembly around them seems bored now that their bout is finished, and Bucky is left to cradle his broken arm as Steve stands there blandly, hands resting on his belt-buckle as he awaits further instruction. Through the dull throb Bucky can feel his shoulder joint slotting back into place. 

The next time Bucky wakes he is alone. He plays his part, despite the fear that curls tightly around his heart. Their last mission is fuzzy in his mind, but he knows that Steve had been with him. Their new handlers are American, which strikes Bucky as funny, that they’ve made their way back after so long. He wonders if these men even know who they are, who they were. 

“Where is the other?” Bucky rumbles out once he and his team of handlers settles into an armored car to take them to their destination. 

“He isn’t coming this time. Reconditioning.” The man almost smiles when he says it, and Bucky drags his name from the back of his memory. Rumlow. A real bastard. 

“Did something happen?” He tries for nonchalance. He is allowed to speak, so long as it isn’t to his superiors, but words still feel foreign in his mouth. 

“Nothing that concerns you.” Rumlow turns from him and Bucky has sudden urge to bludgeon him with his metal hand. Rumlow knows that The Asset will not question him further. He was pushing already by asking at all. 

As Bucky stares blandly at the metal wall of the container truck he’s sequestered in he gets flashes of memory, blurred and stretched thin like taffy as his brain tries to push them away. Something about Steve. 

_Reconditioning._

The flow of the mission is strange. Bucky feels like he’s missing his better half. He and Steve have always worked seamlessly together, even before Hydra had smoothed out their edges into perfected killing machines. But Bucky does not falter. He will complete his mission, as sickened as he is by himself and the entire situation, if it means he gets to see Steve again. 

They do not immediately put him back into stasis after he kills his target. There is more for him to do, apparently. So he takes his time sitting quietly in the safe house, tending to his gear and the weapons he has been given. It is easy to see that he unsettles his handlers, and the vicious part of Bucky revels in it, but he mostly misses Steve. 

They hadn’t found Steve right away, not the way they’d found Bucky. It had taken them months to track him down, to avoid detection by the Americans who had been searching for Steve as well. Bucky hadn’t known at the time. It would have been stupid of Hydra to put their two prisoners together to plot, but Bucky had been privy to them breaking Steve down. 

They had tested everything on Bucky first, after they filled his body with metal and his mind with painful static. There were special cuffs on his forearms, clamping them together behind his back as he was dragged into a new room, a mirror of the testing rooms that had been set up for him, to show him Steve, still mostly encased in ice, but breathing nonetheless. 

Despite their efforts Bucky still managed to kill four of them before they subdued him again. They had ramped up their own special brand of torture until Bucky had been forced out of himself. A coping mechanism maybe, anything to make it stop. These memories had been slow to return, tinged with pain that went beyond physical. Something about seeing Steve had broken him. If they had Steve too then why try and leave? 

The next time he had seen Steve it had been in a tightly-controlled environment, both of them allowed into a room on either side of reinforced glass that Bucky knew even his metal fist could not break. It felt very much like letting two wild dogs sniff at each other through a door. 

Things had continued slowly, both of them losing time and themselves in bits and pieces. Hydra was good at what they did, picking out the things that they wanted and doing away with the rest. How else could they have managed to wash away every bit of the Bucky from before but kept in the fierce protectiveness for Steve? Some attachment was necessary if it made them more vicious when pointed at Hydra’s enemies. 

Memories like those have started returning after all this time, and he almost wishes they wouldn’t. Remembering wouldn’t help Steve. Wouldn’t loosen the noose that Hydra had around Bucky’s neck when they still had Steve. It was another measure for cooperation in them both, even if they didn’t remember anything about their lives before. Another thing to exploit - a connection. They were tied together even when neither of them knew who they were. 

When Bucky is brought back to the main base Steve is there. He does not look good. One of his eyes is swollen shut and there is blood dripping sluggishly onto the floor from some wound that Bucky can not see. The fact that they’ve left Steve standing like a sentinel in the middle of the room when they knew that Bucky would be coming back is clearly meant to elicit a response. Bucky does not give one, though his stomach roils with fury. He doesn’t know what Steve did to merit this punishment, but it has clearly been decisively given, and they’ve left him here as a warning to Bucky as well. 

Steve does not meet his gaze when he walks past, staring into the middle-distance with his one good eye. Bucky does him the kindness of not lingering to look. 

They do not return him to stasis. Bucky doesn’t know why, but he is allowed to remain for more than the standard seventy-two hours. There seems to be some sort of crisis happening, but they don’t tell him, and he does not ask. A flurry of small missions, minor targets, is put in front of him, and he sees Steve in fleeting passes, but they are not put together to work, and anxiety settles in as Bucky’s constant companion. What is happening? Not having Steve by his side puts him on edge more than before. He can’t protect Steve if he’s out in the field. 

The door to Bucky’s ready room-turned-holding cell opens after days of being left alone, and he stands smoothly, schooling himself into the accepted demeanor when he is ordered to follow. 

Bucky doesn’t know where he’s being taken until he is led into a room he has seen before, though he can’t place where. It is bright and open and two of the walls are windows. They are in DC, high up above what must be the Potomac. He picks out a few landmarks in the distance before focusing on the man in front of him, and his image swims in front of Bucky for a long moment, older and then younger. _He looks like Steve._

Pierce. Alexander Pierce. Their new owner. Bucky remembers suddenly as the door is shut behind him as the Hydra agent flees the room under Pierce’s unwavering gaze. 

“Took them long enough.” Pierce mutters, to himself, not Bucky, “Come, stand here so I can see you.” 

Bucky crosses the room in measured strides, stopping when he’s within arm’s reach of Pierce. The man regards him the way one might a work of art, or the curve of a well-sharpened knife. It’s easier to relate to the latter. Bucky does not meet his gaze, waiting to be told what to do. 

Before Pierce can speak the door opens again. Bucky does not look, but he can see out of the corner of his eye that it’s Steve. It’s hard to resist the urge to sag in relief that Steve is okay. As okay as he can be, of course. 

Pierce orders Steve to take his place next to Bucky, then walks around them like they are a pair of show-dogs, or maybe pigs waiting for the butcher. 

“You two deserve a medal. You’ve done more for Hydra than any other operatives.” Pierce may as well be speaking to a pair of statues, neither of them react, “But there is more for you to do. We are far from done with you.” 

As he finishes speaking, Pierce comes back around to stand in front of them, gathering up a glass of brandy from the desk behind him. 

Neither Steve nor Bucky moves, waiting to be told what to do. 

“Now that Fury has been dealt with there is no one to oppose me. Not that he was very much of a threat.” Pierce sips from his brandy and reaches up with his other hand to brush his thumb over Steve’s jaw, the tiniest pressure prompting Steve to lean his head back. Pierce regards him, turning his face from side to side as if trying to decide something. 

“No one will oppose us. Not the Avengers, silly children who make a mess of things. Not SHIELD, now that Stark and Carter are both gone. There is no one left to look for you. Either of you. A pair of ghosts. Do you even remember your names?” 

Quick as a flash Steve moves. Bucky doesn’t even have time to turn in surprise and Pierce lets out a scream. Steve has jerked his head back and bitten clean through three of Pierce’s fingers. Bucky doesn’t know what to do as Steve spits out blood and slams his forehead into Pierce’s face, grabbing him before he can stumble too far, and getting him into a headlock, hand pressed sharply over his nose and mouth. 

Bucky gapes when Steve turns, dragging Pierce in a half-circle to face Bucky. Pierce’s face is turning from red to purple under the force of Steve’s grasp.

“Hey Buck. You with me?” Steve is eyeing him warily, arms still clamped tightly around Pierce’s head. 

Bucky only distantly hears Pierce’s muffled sounds of outrage before the door they came in bursts open, a half-dozen men armed to the teeth spilling into the room. There is a roaring in Bucky’s ears, and he pays the men no mind. Steve is here. He remembers. 

“Stand down!” One of the men shouts, and Steve and Bucky turn as one to face the assembled men. They are afraid, Bucky can see it in their posture, the minute shake of a gun barrel.

They should be. 

Bucky turns and flashes a sharp grin at Steve, and watches Steve’s eyes crinkle around the edges as he returns the smile. 

“After you,” Bucky murmurs, “Steve.”

**Author's Note:**

> Short and while not necessarily sweet very fun to write! I may add more to this eventually but I mostly wanted to get it out of my system since it's been a long time since I wrote anything.  
> Thank you so much for reading!


End file.
